“I am Nikolai’s mother.”

“Hmm. Well, he certainly didn’t get his looks from you, did he?”

Aizhana bristled, but she wouldn’t take the bait. Galina was trying to distract her from her purpose. “When Nikolai came to you today, asking for a place to stay, you tossed him onto the street without remorse.”

Galina set her hands on her hips. “And that, you believe, is an offense that merits my death?”

“He had nowhere else to go.”

“Nikolai is resourceful.”

“You are heartless.”

Galina sneered and looked pointedly at Aizhana’s chest. “I would wager you are, too. Quite literally.”

The black energy inside Aizhana bubbled to boiling. She lunged at Galina.

Galina jerked out of the way and flung out her arms, sending a wave of magic at Aizhana. It hurled Aizhana against a statue of a weeping angel and knocked the air out of her withered lungs.

But she scrambled quickly to her feet. She had not managed to kill the tsar by being weak. Galina might have a little magic on her side, but she was not skilled in combat. Aizhana, on the other hand, had managed to defeat the soldiers who guarded the tsar, as well as Alexander himself. And Alexander was no fool with a pistol or sword.

Aizhana charged, her bladelike fingernails flashing. Galina clapped her hands twice in rapid succession, and the tombstones in Aizhana’s path fell like dominoes in a death trap. Aizhana darted out of the way of the first and second ones, but the third fell on the tail end of her cloak and tore it with a loud rip from her body, leaving her in only a threadbare koilek tunic. And the fourth tombstone was more towering pillar than grave marker. Aizhana barely escaped it crushing—and possibly severing—her bad foot.

Galina was more formidable an opponent than she’d anticipated. It was one thing to be able to foresee the tsar driving a sword through Aizhana’s belly—which she’d casually removed and then healed herself, much to Alexander’s chagrin—but another thing entirely to fight someone whose skills allowed her to move unpredictably. I need to trap her. But how? The cemetery was too open. And Aizhana would not be able to back Galina into a corner, not when Galina had the ability to levitate and move faster and in more directions than Aizhana could.

But what if Galina thought she had me cornered? Instead of me chasing her, she can chase me.

Aizhana gasped and fell to the snow, clutching her foot as if the falling pillar had, indeed, wounded her. She cradled it in her hand and, with a movement hidden from Galina’s line of sight, snapped off one of the toes. It didn’t matter; it was frostbitten and Aizhana couldn’t feel it anyway. Besides, it was the foot that was already damaged. But she whimpered as if painfully injured. “You broke my foot!” She hissed as she held the severed toe up in the air.

She crawled up to standing, wincing and clutching the nearest cross for support. She hissed again at Galina. “You may have won tonight, but I will be back to repay you, tenfold.” She began to limp away.

Galina’s laugh was a wolf’s snarl. “If you think you can attack me and then simply walk away, you are sorely mistaken.” She stepped toward Aizhana.

Facing away from her, Aizhana smirked. Yes, follow me. She limped as fast as she could toward a mausoleum, as if she were wounded prey seeking a hiding place from her predator.

The doors were locked. But Aizhana didn’t need the key to get in. Her fingernails were as good for picking locks as they were for slashing throats. Galina closed the distance between them. Aizhana slid her nails into the lock, and a few seconds later heard the satisfying click of the mechanism giving way. She shoved the heavy mausoleum doors open and limped in.

Where it was completely dark. The faint moonlight outside did not penetrate the crypt. Aizhana stumbled into the marble coffin at its center.

There was a faint wisp of wind as Galina glided in.

“I should lock you in here,” Galina said, her voice echoing against the marble walls. “You’re mostly dead already. The tomb would finish the job.”

“I survived being buried for nearly two decades. I doubt locking me in here would be enough to kill me this time, either,” Aizhana said, partly because pride made her defend herself, and partly to draw Galina farther into the mausoleum, toward the sound of her voice.

Galina was too cautious. She remained near the doors.

But no matter. Aizhana’s eyes, being accustomed to living six feet underground, had already adjusted to the lack of light in the crypt. Especially with the faint moonlight in the background, she could see Galina’s silhouette perfectly. And Galina could not see her.

Aizhana pounced. She lanced a nail straight into the center of Galina’s chest, the needle tip of it spearing through pulsing, thick muscle. It turned out Galina did, in fact, have a heart, one bursting with energy like Aizhana had never felt before, because Galina’s energy was threaded through with the ability to call upon magic. It would be nowhere near as powerful as Nikolai’s, of course, for Galina was merely a mentor, but the surge of it was still enough to make Aizhana moan with pleasure, like absorbing fireworks along with Galina’s life. This energy was what Nikolai needed.

Galina gaped at Aizhana. “You . . .”

“I . . . what?”

“You don’t deserve Nikolai.”

Aizhana thrust her fingernail harder through Galina’s heart. Galina cried out. A moment later, she slumped as the last of her energy drained from her haughty body into Aizhana’s blighted one.

Aizhana tried to extract her nail, as if she were withdrawing a sword, but the movement was too violent, and her nail snapped off, remaining firmly lodged in Galina’s chest.

“Damn you,” she said. “Even in death you do harm to me and my family.” She spat on Galina’s corpse. And then Aizhana spat again, for good measure. “You don’t deserve Nikolai, either.”

But there was someone who might deserve Nikolai, if she could prove her worth, her willingness to help him. It was that servant girl he’d mentioned. Aizhana smiled.

She would find Renata next.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The next afternoon, Vika rode beside Pasha in the open carriage as they departed the Winter Palace. Pasha might have been a wreck on the inside—he purposely averted his eyes from where the Jack’s and ballerina’s boxes used to be in the square—but on the outside, he was nothing but regal serenity. He wore a crisp black military uniform with gold epaulets on his shoulders, red piping along the edges, and mirror-shined brass buttons down the front. His hair was neatly combed (this alone let Vika know that his appearance was but a facade), and a stately black feathered hat that marked his training in the cavalry.